More Missing Than Links

THE Piltdown man was too good to be true. Evolutionists have long looked for the missing link between ape and man. If they could only find something half ape and half man! They have had it all the time. For forty years the Piltdown man was one of the evolutionists’ most famous skulls. They always told us the cranium was human but the jawbone was apelike. But evolutionists are difficult to comprehend. When they finally proved the cranium really was human and the jaw was really from an ape you would think they would be happy. But it both embarrassed and saddened them.

Perhaps it was because the human cranium was older than the anthropoid jaw. It would seem Mr. Piltdown was descending to apehood instead of ascending to manhood. That is contrary to the theory, and anything that is heretical is excommunicated from consideration. Nor is it easy to conceive a cranium waiting around a few thousand years to be joined by its jawbone. So it was with some reluctance that the evolutionists acknowledged last November that the famous Piltdown missing link was really missing, banished as a monstrosity that never existed. Bluntly but embarrassingly put, it was a fake and a hoax that fooled these “wise” men for forty years. When its exposure as such was publicized, many who had accepted it came forward and said they had suspected it all the time. Yet some of these same men had proclaimed it a proof that man had evolved from a primitive ape and displayed it as such on museum shelves.

In view of these facts, how can other controversial claims of evolutionary proof be confidently accepted? When they are exposed as false, how many of their scientific supporters will suddenly remember that they always suspected their authenticity anyway? It is easy to swallow something when your own prejudice is jamming it down your throat. The fact is that evolutionists are so biased in favor of their theory that their fantastic “evidence” has to be blown to bits before they will let loose of it. It is a popular but erroneous view to consider evolutionists as impartial judges weighing the evidence and coolly calculating and evaluating the results with no regard as to the effects on their pet theories. In other fields of science this unemotional scientific attitude and method may operate, but anyone who thinks it obtains in this highly emotional and controversial matter of evolution betrays a misplaced trust and a woeful gullibility. Not only are the needed links missing, but also the needed scientific attitude on the part of evolutionists is missing.

In evolution’s chain there are so many thousands of links missing that there is no proof a chain even exists. But to limit ourselves to the links between ape and men, consider the facts on the shattered Piltdown man. In 1908 a small piece of skull was found in a gravel pit at Piltdown in Sussex County, England. In 1912 another bit of a cranium was found, and then a jawbone with three molars. Several years later an eye tooth was found in a rubbish heap. Though found at different times and in different spots, the bits were put together and Piltdown man was born. A few evolutionists argued that the pieces did not belong together, but the majority ruled and, with no proof but much dogmatism, proclaimed a missing link. Its age? Five hundred thousand years. Proof? No, just more dogmatism. Now the five hundred thousand years have dwindled to fifty thousand and some scientists have even cut it to ten thousand.

Mr. Piltdown’s antiquity is gone, his position as a link is shattered, but the dogmatism of his evolutionary sponsors remains. It is demonstrated relative to other so-called links between ape and man. A case similar to the Piltdown man is that of the Java man. In 1891 Dubois discovered in river gravel a few fragments of skull and some teeth. Later, and some fifty feet away, a thigh bone was uncovered. These bits were unjustifiably assumed to be all from one creature, and so were assembled to become the famous Java man. As in the case of Piltdown man, some evolutionists have objected to this arbitrary association of these scattered bones and have pointed out that the skull fragment is undoubtedly from a chimpanzee or gibbon whereas the thigh bone is human. Yet the majority of evolutionists would not allow their manufactured link to be dissolved and to this day hail Java man as one of the strongest proofs of evolution from ape to man. Doubtless when this folly is unmasked before everyone these dogmatic evolutionists will shrug it off as something they suspected all the time.

The average person may think of a completely assembled primitive ape-man when the Heidelberg man is mentioned. But all science has is a large jawbone complete with teeth. From this the evolutionists tell us the size, posture, diet and tools he used. However, they do not tell us jaws of similar size and proportion are found among the Eskimos of today. You have heard of Peking man, another famous link. It is heralded because its brain size is about halfway between that of man and ape. But again, people of this same skull size and shape exist today; namely, the Veddas in Ceylon. Neanderthal man is no different from some men living today. Moreover, modern-type men are found in earth layers older than those containing these so-called “missing links.” There is absolutely no proof of any missing links between man and ape.

Of the famous missing links evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith said: “We cannot trace modern man back to any of these extinct types.” Professor Branco of Berlin University said: “Paleontology tells us nothing on the subject—it knows no ancestors of man.” Professor Virchow declared: “The man-ape has no existence and the missing link remains a phantom.” Austin Clark of Smithsonian Institution said: “Missing links are misinterpretations.” And when their finds do not support their theory the evolutionists conceal that evidence, as evolutionist Hooton, Harvard professor of anthropology, admits: “Heretical and nonconforming fossil men were banished to the limbo of dark museum cupboards, forgotten or even destroyed.” Incidentally, when Hooton heard of the disgrace and demise of the Piltdown man he termed it “tragic.” Little wonder, since he had staunchly defended it in his writings.

But the evolutionists will continue parading their “links” and will propagandize for them with unabated dogmatism. From beginning to end, the evolution theory is supported by assertions, not evidence. Any who argue against it are not authorities, any who criticize it are not scientific; so they say to intimidate and scare off critics and jam the theory down people’s throats by the tyranny of authority. So it is not only links that are missing, but proofs and unprejudiced approaches and scientific methods that are missing. Despite hot denials, evolution is accepted on “faith” and faith alone.

Now their faith in Piltdown man is gone. Their words about him are false, their wisdom turned out to be folly. “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” But, “The word spoken by Jehovah endures forever.”—1 Cor. 3:19; 1 Pet. 1:25, NW.